In Shining Armor
by childsvoice
Summary: In a world of dragons, giants, and faeries, all young Elizabeta wants is to become a knight. Unfortunately, her destiny is to grow up a to be fine lady and be married off, so she is certain that all her dream will ever be is just that: a dream. But when an opportunity arises, she takes the chance without a thought of the death penalty if her gender is discovered. PruHung, AusHung


**Disclaimer: Yes, I totally own Hetalia.**

…

**That was sarcasm…**

Elizabeta stared at the gravestone now sitting on the freshly overturned earth, sniffling softly. She felt her mothers hand reach down and gently massage her shoulder.

"It's all right, honey. He had a good life," she whispered soothingly.

This might have been a tad more comforting had that not already been proclaimed by the stone in sturdy black font.

**Dan**

**Died age 2**

**He lived a good life, and was much beloved.**

**RIP**

Apparently the guys at the store couldn't fit Elizabeta's whole monologue of "The Daring Adventures of Dan the Dog," as she had titled it, and had taken the liberty of summarizing it in one short sentence. Elizabeta did not find it nearly enough. After all, there was plenty of room on the expensive stone, and Dan had most certainly NOT lived a "good life." He had lived a DARING life, a RISKING life. What other life WAS there for such an energetic pup?

And beloved? Certainly by Elizabeta. But seeing as every time her father was in the house and Dan came running up to him, bouncing around happily while yipping his head off, all he would be rewarded with was a good whack with an angry yell of, "get that thing OUTSIDE", Elizabeta didn't really think MUCH beloved was a particularly accurate description. The sky hadn't even had the decency to rain for the funeral of her first pet.

And then it had been nothing short of traumatizing when he had gotten run over by a car.

The brown haired child turned her tear stained face up to her mother. "Why didn't you stop it?" she queried innocently.

"Stop what?" her mother stopped the motions on her shoulder and turned her gaze from the stone to stare, puzzled, at her young daughter.

"The CAR," Elizabeta said loudly, as if it were excruciatingly obvious, "you were there with me, we weren't that far away. You could have run in front of the car and told them to stop."

Her mother sighed, "Sweetie, would you rather me or the dog die? Sometimes things like this happen. He wanted to live dangerously, and he took the consequences. Besides, he wasn't my dog."

Elizabeta stomped her foot angrily. "But I TOLD him to look both ways before he crossed the street, I just don't think he could understand human talk very well yet. It wasn't his fault! Wouldn't you run in front of the car for me? Isn't that what you do for someone you love?" the girl yelled, eyes beginning to fill with tears again.

"Of course I would run in front of a car for you! You're my darling little girl." Her mother said, ruffling her hair affectionately, "But you only have one life, and I'm not in all that much of a hurry to give mine up."

"Why would you give up your life?" Elizabeta asked, confused.

Her mother closed her eyes and rubbed her hand over her forehead. Sure, she loved her daughter, but why did kids have to be so slow? This was why she didn't want to spend time with the little tyke till she was older. The parenting books could only take one so far. "Because that's what happens when you get run over by a car, as Dan here has been so kind to demonstrate for us."

She caught herself. Maybe that was going a little bit too far. She didn't want to make the girl cry anymore. She was just so bad at this kind of thing. But to her surprise, Elizabeta laughed.

"But you're not a DOG, silly! You're my mommy; you don't die like a little animal does or something."

Her mother was silent for a long while, and finally, when Elizabeta was about to say something, quietly said, "We all die eventually, Elizabeta, just like your dog. And we only have one life, so it's a big thing to give it away to keep another one from dying. You would only do something like that for someone you really, really, care about. A lot. I can get killed by a car just as easily as Dan can… death, you could say, makes us all equal."

"Oh…" Elizabeta murmured, realization slowly dawning, "So big people like you die? But I don't want that to happen! Is there any way I can stop you from dying? I don't know what I would do without you…are you going to die soon?" she was anxious now, eyes wide with fright.

Dammit, why did she have to have the death talk with Elizabeta when she was only four? Couldn't she just figure this stuff out by herself? This could be so much easier if she had just refused to get her the dang dog in the first place.

"Well, let me put it simply. Lets see…when someone's right in a situation…like they're right about to be run over by a car, you have to offer up something equally valuable to save them. Like your life. The only other way is to keep the person you care about from being put into a deadly situation, which isn't easy, especially because it's hard to keep someone from falling ill. Which is why you have to take good care of yourself, so you don't get sick, like brushing your teeth and taking baths. And you need to get better at that, by the way. And don't you worry, I plan to keep living for quite a few more years yet." She ended with a smile.

The girl frowned, "So you mean there's nothing I can do when you're about to die but die, instead? But I don't want to do that…I like living…"

"Well, not exactly, and it's very rare that someone is put in a situation like that, I'm nearly positive you never-"

"But I already was!" Elizabeta interrupted, "With Dan! I could have saved him, couldn't I? So I basically am telling him that I don't care about him enough to save his life!"

"…No, dear, that doesn't count," her mother continued, "He made his own choice. It isn't your responsibility to save him, no matter how much you love him."

The girl frowned. This didn't make any sense! But her mom would save her, even if it cost her her life? She began anxiously picking at the grass around her. She didn't want to feel so guilty…had she really loved her dog? But no- she hadn't known all this before. Now that she was wiser, she decided, she would never let anyone important to her die. She liked being alive, but when it all came down to it, it was a life equal to hers getting to go on living, or a life of guilt. Yes, that was certainly right. But wait. Maybe not. Maybe-

"But I would protect Dan sometimes, wouldn't I?" she continued after her silence, "Like when the neighbors dog would try to hurt him, I could step in and tell him to go away; hit him even. And then Dan didn't get hurt. Can't I do that? …If I'm strong, can't I protect someone?"

Her mother laughed, "Protecting your pet is one thing, but protecting a person, if that's what we're speaking of, is a different thing entirely. You see, we, as girls, are naturally weaker. We can protect one of our own, or one lesser, but not a boy. Certainly you could try, but you'll probably end up just getting yourself and him killed (if that's what's at stake). And on the off chance that you do succeed, it would be incredibly damaging to a boys pride to have been saved by a girl." she rolled her eyes slightly, "It's just better to avoid doing such things entirely. It's natures way; the men are supposed to protect the women. The men can take care of themselves."

Elizabeta's frown deepened. That didn't sound quite fair. "Does that mean the boys are better than us?" she asked.

"Not at all! We're just good at different things. Men may be good fighters, but it would be horrible if they did the cooking or the cleaning. They may get more glory, but it's the women who really control the under workings of the world. And besides, the men like the glory, but the women can see that we really control it all, and don't need the glory that the men do. It's a balance, the roles set by nature. The brains and the brawn, see?"

That still didn't sound very good to Elizabeta. "What if a girl wants glory and doesn't want to stay home and cook?"

Her mother groaned. "Elizabeta, too many questions. I rather doubt that would be too much of an issue, anyways. And-" she checked her watch, "I've been out here for much too long…" she bit her lip anxiously, "How about I give you some alone time with your dog?" She bestowed a fleeting hug on her daughter and hurried over to the house to continue her work.

Elizabeta watched her mom disappear over the hill. She had always taken everything her mom had said as fact…but something didn't seem just right here. Plus, she was still extremely confused about the whole thing. She pulled out more grass, deep in thought (or about as deep in thought as a four year old could get).

And then it clicked. She could protect people. Just not from death. She merely had to get stronger…the only question was…: How?

****

Elizabetas mother collapsed, exhausted, into a chair at the end of the day, her mind swimming with thoughts of the hard work day. And then, _then_, she thought to herself, to top it all off there had been that conversation with her daughter at that funeral for her pet.

She knew she wasn't the best mother in the world, and she was rather skeptical of how well she had handled it back there. Death was a tough subject, and even harder to explain to a small child. She hoped she had done at least a half decent job of it. She felt like her explanation might have been a tad to complex for a small child to understand… she just hoped Elizabeta didn't come to and stupid conclusions.

But more important was the subject of the roles of men and women. Had she gone too far by putting such sharp definitions on them? Yes…of course she had. But what else could she do? You never knew when a tiny government piskie might be flying by. She wanted to tell her daughter that that was a lie. That she could be whatever she wanted.

Well, she scoffed, that wasn't exactly true, was it?

But she still hoped the girl would realize that she could protect whomever she wanted, and damn the consequences, if that was what she wanted to do.

But…I'm probably just over thinking this, she thought. Elizabeta is only four, after all. She isn't going to even remember this conversation. It doesn't even matter, anyways. Her future is already set up for her. Danger free.

And with that thought, she picked up one of her favorite paperback romances and promptly forgot all about the matter.

**AN: Rereading this, it seems rather rambling and confusing…I hope I was able to get the points I wanted to get across across, at least OTL. This was originally going to be just a flash back at the beginning of the first chapter…but it turned out a little too long for that in my opinion. Sooo that means I'll be posting the first chapter pretty soon. **

**Another thing, reading the summary you may have been expecting something more set in the middle ages, and I'll admit that _was _my idea, and I really would love to write that, but the thing is I just plain old don't have enough knowledge about that time period to write something like that. This story is still going to be based off the middle ages, but I really don't have the time to do all the research needed to fully set it in such a place ^^; the extent of my research for this story will probably just be re reading a volume or two from the Song of the Lioness quartet and possibly looking up anything in there that catches my interest. I like to believe I have a little more than the average persons background knowledge on the subject (having been a total fantasy geek), so hopefully this story won't be too bad in that aspect. I really wish I could do more…but I have a (rather busy at the moment) life.**

**So yeah! Thanks so much for reading! Reviews make feel like rainbows and bunnies in my heart owo YAY**

***I DO NOT OWN THE IMAGE.* I did look for who drew it, but it was just on some tumblr RP blog and they didn't say where they got it…so if you know whose it is, PLEASE tell me. Also, if you would rather me not use it, don't hesitate to say something and I'll take it down :3**


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